Watch Report No.23 June 30, 2020
§If the Korean War Ends, the United Nations Command Will Also End.
In the April 2018 Panmunjom Declaration, the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) agreed to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula by creating a lasting peace regime, including the denuclearization of the peninsula. At the June 2018 Singapore Summit, the United States and the DPRK also agreed on the mutual goal of establishing new US–DPRK relations for peace and prosperity to create a stable and lasting peace regime on the Korean Peninsula. In the Panmunjom Declaration, the ROK and the DPRK agreed to declare an end to the Korean War before the end of the year, and during a press conference at the Singapore Summit, President Trump said, “Now we can all have hope that it (Korean War) will soon end. And it will.” [1] The two summits held in 2018 placed the end of the Korean War, which began in June 1950 and entered a ceasefire in July 1953 via an armistice agreement, on the table as a concrete international agenda item.
The end of the Korean War would improve the prospect for peace in East Asia. For that to happen, however, consensus must be carefully obtained regarding the future of the United Nations Command (UNC).
The UNC was established by UN Resolutions in 1950 when the Korean War began. Today, the UNC remains deployed in South Korea and has its rear command in Japan. If the Korean War transitions from armistice to conclusion through an end-of-war declaration or a peace treaty, it will mean that the UNC’s mission is accomplished and it follows that the UNC is to be dissolved. However, some in the Pentagon are now arguing that the UNC should stay in South Korea for post-Korean War peacekeeping.
This article reflects on the circumstances leading to the establishment of the UNC and the path the UNC needs to take upon the conclusion of the Korean War.
The UNC is not the UN Forces that was Envisaged by the UN Charter
When the Korean War broke out in 1950, multinational forces, led by the US under the UN flag, supported the ROK against the invasion by the DPRK, which aimed to unite the Korean Peninsula through military operations. These multinational forces, known as the UNC, are not the UN forces envisaged by the United Nations Charter.
Chapter VII, Articles 39–51, of the UN Charter authorizes the use of force to maintain or restore international peace and security in case of a breach of the peace or an act of aggression. Article 42 enables the Security Council to use force to maintain or restore international peace and security if the non-military measures provided for in Article 41 are inadequate. Article 43 says that, “All Members of the United Nations, in order to contribute to the maintenance of international peace and security, undertake to make available to the Security Council, on its call and in accordance with a special agreement or agreements, armed forces, assistance, and facilities, including rights of passage, necessary for the purpose of maintaining international peace and security.” In other words, each UN member is obligated to lend a portion of its armed forces to the UN in response to the Security Council’s call. These forces provided by UN members under the authorization and direction of the Security Council constitute the UN forces as envisaged by the UN Charter.
However, such UN forces have never officially existed. For the UN to assemble these forces, UN members must make their militaries available to the UN through the special agreements mentioned in Article 43. From 1946 to 1948, the Military Staff Committee, being the Security Council’s advisory body comprised of chiefs of staff or their representatives from the permanent members of the Security Council, attempted to hash out the details of these special agreements. However, no consensus emerged among the permanent members of the Security Council, especially between the US and the Soviet Union. Thus, to this day, no UN member has ever entered a special agreement to make its armed forces available to the Security Council, and the UN forces have never been assembled as described in Article 43.
The UNC, on the other hand, was established pursuant to the 1950 UN Resolutions 82 [2], 83 [3], and 84 [4]. The Security Council passed these resolutions without the participation of the full permanent members; the Soviet Union was boycotting the Security Council in protest against Taiwan (the Republic of China) representing China’s seat at the Council.
On June 25, 1950, the Korean War began. The Security Council passed Resolution 82 in which it determined that North Korea’s aggression constituted a breach of the peace and demanded the withdrawal of the North Korean army. North Korea did not comply, and the Council passed Resolution 83 to call on UN members to provide assistance necessary for the ROK to repel the North Korean attack. Finally, on July 7, 1950, the Council passed Resolution 84 to recommend forces provided by UN members to be committed to a unified command under the US and to authorize the unified command to use the UN flag. On July 25, 1960, in accordance with Resolution 84, the UNC was established and Douglas MacArthur, the commander of the US Far East Command, was appointed as the commander of the UNC.
It is important to note that Resolutions 83 and 84, which pertain to providing assistance for the ROK and the commanding role of the US under the UN flag, were not adopted as decisions but as recommendations under Article 39 [5] of the UN Charter. As noted earlier, the special agreements required to create UN forces were never concluded, and thus, the Security Council could not use any language more demanding than “recommendations,” and they certainly could not impose any “decisions.” Thus, the UNC is not comprised of forces provided by UN members based on special agreements; it is comprised of forces from the US and 15 states that had close ties with the US (the UK, Thailand, Canada, Turkey, Australia, the Philippines, New Zealand, Ethiopia, Greece, France, Colombia, Belgium, South Africa, the Netherlands, and Luxembourg) [6]. In other words, the UNC really is a US-led coalition of multinational forces.
The Debate within the UN about the UNC’s Dissolution
Due to the reasons above, the legitimacy of the UNC’s existence has been called into question and its continual deployment in the ROK subject to frequent debates.
First of all, the Korean Armistice Agreement, signed and enforced in Panmunjom in July 1953, recommends the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the Korean Peninsula:
“In order to insure the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, the military Commanders of both sides hereby recommend to the governments of the countries concerned on both sides that, within three (3) months after the Armistice Agreement is signed and becomes effective, a political conference of a higher level of both sides be held by representatives appointed respectively to settle through negotiation the questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, etc.” [7]
Thereafter, the ROK and the DPRK had talks on the withdrawal of multinational forces at the 1954 Geneva Conference, lasting from April to July 1954. However, the ROK had signed the US-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty in October 1953 and approved US forces to remain in the country. During the Geneva talks, the DPRK demanded the withdrawal of all foreign troops, the negotiations ultimately fell apart, and the dispute over the withdrawal of foreign troops from the ROK remains unresolved to date.
In September 1954, after the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed, China announced its intent to withdraw its People’s Volunteer Army from the Korean Peninsula and completed the withdrawal by 1958. Other countries, excluding the US, that had provided troops to the UNC also began withdrawing their troops from the ROK and Japan; by June 1972, they completely withdrew their soldiers except for liaison officers.
In 1957, the UNC’s headquarters was moved from Tokyo to Seoul, and the commander of the US Forces Korea, stationing in the ROK pursuant to the US-ROK Mutual Defense Treaty, assumed UNC commandership. The UNC also continued to hold operational command authority over ROK forces pursuant to the July 1950 Taejon Agreement. Since the ROK/US Combined Forces Command (CFC) was created in November 1978, the commander of the CFC has assumed UNC commandership, while at the same time holding operational command authority over ROK forces.
The call for the dissolution of the UNC persisted within the UN throughout the 1970s and thereafter. In 1971, when the People’s Republic of China replaced the Taiwanese government to occupy China’s UN seat, it began pressing for the dissolution of the UNC. In 1975, the UN General Assembly adopted Resolution 3390A [8], as introduced by the Soviet Union and other Eastern European countries, calling for the dissolution of the UNC and the withdrawal of all foreign troops from the Korean Peninsula. However, the effect of this resolution was canceled out by the General Assembly’s adoption of Resolution 3390B [9], which was introduced by Western countries that opposed Resolution 3390A. After both the ROK and the DPRK were admitted into the UN in 1991 and throughout the 1990s, the DPRK repeatedly demanded that the Security Council dissolve the UNC. However, the UN never seriously considered this issue.
Today, once again, circumstances warrant debate about the UNC’s dissolution, given that ROK-DPRK and US-DPRK summits held in 2018 have resumed discussions about the end of the Korean War.
“Revitalization” of the UNC
The campaign for the “revitalization” of the UNC that the US has been advocating is highly significant. This revitalization campaign (called “yushin” in Korean) was initiated around 2015 by the commander of the UNC and US Forces Korea to revive the UNC, which has been in a near dormant state ever since the Korean War entered a ceasefire and has had more of a ceremonial existence since then. The campaign entails a drive for more active contributions from international participants besides the US.
For example, in July 2018, Lieutenant-General Wayne Eyre of the Canadian Army was appointed as the first non-American deputy commander of the UNC. Eyre was succeeded by Vice Admiral Stuart Mayer of the Royal Australian Navy in July 2019, making two consecutive deputy commanders who are not from the US forces. Furthermore, there has been a reduction in the number of dual officer posts, wherein officers of the US Forces Korea simultaneously hold positions in the UNC. This has been done to allow more appointments of US allies—especially the UK, Australia, and Canada—in important UNC positions.
One of the reasons behind the US campaign for the revitalization of the UNC is the ROK’s demand for a return of wartime operational control of the combined ROK-US forces. The ROK and the US agreed in 2012 that the control would be returned to the ROK; however, the actual return has been delayed. President Moon Jae-in wants the transfer of control to be completed before his term ends in 2023.
By making the UNC appear more like real UN forces with international participation, the US is probably aiming to maintain control over military operations on the Korean Peninsula through the commandership of the UNC, even after it returns the wartime operational control of the combined ROK-US forces to the ROK.
In other words, it is likely that behind the US and US allies’ revitalization campaign is their plan to keep the UNC after the end of the Korean War and to maintain US influence on the Korean Peninsula through the UNC. In February 2019, the UNC’s deputy commander Eyre, in an interview with the Chosun Ilbo, emphasized that the UNC’s mission would go on after the conclusion of the Korean War. He stated that the UNC would stay deployed after the conclusion of the Korean War with a 2-3 times increase in personnel and that it would continue to play a support role until a permanent peace regime is established on the Korean Peninsula [10].
To be perfectly clear, the UNC is not the UN forces envisaged by the UN Charter, and the justification for its existence is dubious at best. Therefore, if the end of the Korean War is declared by an agreement among all parties to the war, the UNC’s mission ought to be terminated forthwith at that point—this is the only natural and logical outcome that should be expected in such an eventuality.
Some argue that even if the Korean War ends, some level of troops that have a connection to the UN should remain deployed for peacekeeping. We have no objection to this argument provided that the central parties to the war—especially both the two protagonists on the Korean Peninsula, the DPRK and the ROK—wish for the continued presence of such troops. Certainly, such troops would have missions, roles, and structures that are completely different from those of the UNC.
This article was written following the discussions among several members of the Citizens’ Watch project.
(Takuya MORIYAMA)
[1] Press Conference by President Trump, White House, June 12, 2018
[2] S/PV.473 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/632558?ln=en
[3] S/PV.474 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/632559?ln=en
[4] S/PV.476 https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/632646?ln=zh_en
[5] UN Charter Article 39: The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.
[6] The ROK, still not admitted to the UN, agreed to assign operational control of its military forces to the UNC via the Taejon Agreement of July 15, 1950.
[7] The Korean Armistice Agreement, the United Nations
[8] A/RES/3390(XXX)[B] https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/639972?ln=en
[9] A/RES/3390(XXX)[A] https://digitallibrary.un.org/record/639969?ln=en
[10] Chosun Ilbo, February 8, 2019 (in Korean)
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